The Gladiators team management was
disconcerted to find, at pm, that there were only
9 players definitely coming. In the event, the decision
was made to travel over anyway, as Swans would have
made all their arrangements by then. Fortunately,
Swans had 21 players, and were willing not only to
lend their visitors 5, but to let the result stand
rather than insisting on taking the points, and aking
the game just a friendly.
The game kicked off with Dorchester reverting to
an earlier tradition, of conceding points straight
away; Swans were 5 up after barely a minute or two.
The Gladiators continued to be somewhat disorganised,
and after around 20 minutes had conceded a total
of 17. However, having warmed up, and being made
up to 15 players with the welcome arrival of Luke
Reid on the left wing, they started to play their
way back into the game, building phases, making
tackles, and generally looking more united. Aaron
Seldon, whose parents had travelled from Exeter
to watch him, made some excellent tackles and sniping
runs, one of which unfortunately was head-first
into a prop so he needed a bit of a lie-down for
a few minutes. The players loaned from Swans were
all bedding in nicely. Even the scrum didn't always
go backwards, bolstered by Swans at tight head,
lock and back row, and with joint captains Allan
Bickley and Russ Trent sharing loose head duties.
Half time came after a thrilling run down the left
touchline from fly half Haydn Coles, who evaded
two covering tackles but couldn't quite get through
the last two.
The plan had originally been for Swans to swap
over the players they had lent, but all of them
opted to stay with Dorchester for the second half.
The visitors started brightly, getting to the Swans
22 and forcing a penalty, which was narrowly missed.
Swans then came back, and for about 15 minutes were
camped on the Dorchester try line, with scrum after
scrum. A pushover try was denied them when their
No.8 knocked on rather than letting the ball roll,
and another attempt was held up, but Dorchester
were unable to clear their lines whenever they had
the put-in, and eventually the pressure told and
Swans achieved their push-over.
Dorchester were now fired up, and the rest of the
half was theirs. Good carries by Alex Skidmore and
Gary Smith (on loan) led to Smith going over with
support from Skidmore and also Iain Adshead - no
doubt Swans' management will fine Smith heavily
for that ! A short while later, more good linking
between Smith and Skidmore got the latter over the
line, just before the final whistle.
Next week the Gladiators are at home to Bournemouth
4. Results so far this season give grounds for cautious
optimism, but we will need more than 9 players !
The Gladiators are Dorchester's third team. 
